Anybody watching Spurs/Heat game...thoughts? Topic

Posted by osgonlz on 6/29/2013 1:17:00 PM (view original):I'm still scratching my head why the Cavs organization and it's owner gets a pass on all this. They managed to get LJ in the draft and had him for seven seasons. In that time they failed to take advantage of having an elite player and building a winner around him. I sort of understand from a fan perspective having some sort of resentment on Lebron. But the hatred should be towards that terrible franchise.

I can understand the point you're trying to get at, but I would have to disagree strongly about them not building a winning organization during that time period. The team was very successful in the playoffs and lead the league in wins one of those years. For the most part, those teams had very good role players and had good depth for an nba franchise.

C'mon, really?

It's funny that everyone hates the MJ comparisons, but Lebron made everyone on those teams look like legitimate NBA players when they were, in fact, useless.

Seriously, who on that team was a good role player when not playing with Lebron? Maybe Z. Maybe Gooden. Hughes wasn't good before ot after Lebron. Eric Snow about 10 years prior...maybe. That's about it, and Gooden is stretching it.

When his feet weren't hurt or broken (which, unfortunately, didn't seem to be very often), Ilgauskas was a decent big man. Donyell Marshall had his moments. Unfortunately, those moments were about 5 years earlier. So, umm yeah, Z and that's about it. Man, I didn't realize just how bad that team was until I looked at their roster just now. Knew they weren't any kind of "all-time" team, but good gracious that team was horrible. Take LeBron off that team and they "might" win 15 games (and I am no LeBron James fan, by any means, but the truth is the truth).

isack, I'm not saying every roster from every year was competent from top to bottom...though I think you're overlooking Varejao and Povlovic. Players that hit open shots, got Lebron the ball, crashed the boards, and D'd up hard may have seemed useless to you, but from my seat it looked like they played their roles quite well.

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/1/2013 1:42:00 AM (view original):I've always had a soft spot for Anderson Varejao. He works so hard, particularly on the offensive glass. He's like Joakim Noah-lite.

haha, yeah, me too. You're exactly right, what's even funnier is that both have the same type of disjunctive/unathletic looking styles to their game (or at least that's the way it seems to me off the top of my head).

Posted by nachopuzzle on 7/1/2013 1:42:00 AM (view original):isack, I'm not saying every roster from every year was competent from top to bottom...though I think you're overlooking Varejao and Povlovic. Players that hit open shots, got Lebron the ball, crashed the boards, and D'd up hard may have seemed useless to you, but from my seat it looked like they played their roles quite well.

I think you're proving my point when you bring up Pavlovic. That's a guy who has has one season over 13.5 mpg and no seasons over 5 ppg since he stopped playing with Lebron. I agree about Varejao now, but he was not that type of player five years ago. That's just a development thing.

Those teams were just not good. Best way to prove it: 2009-2010 Cavs were 61-21; 2010-2011 Cavs were 19-63. Now I'm not suggesting Lebron is actually wirth 42 wins, but clearly that team wasn't very good.

Posted by nachopuzzle on 7/1/2013 1:42:00 AM (view original):isack, I'm not saying every roster from every year was competent from top to bottom...though I think you're overlooking Varejao and Povlovic. Players that hit open shots, got Lebron the ball, crashed the boards, and D'd up hard may have seemed useless to you, but from my seat it looked like they played their roles quite well.

I think you're proving my point when you bring up Pavlovic. That's a guy who has has one season over 13.5 mpg and no seasons over 5 ppg since he stopped playing with Lebron. I agree about Varejao now, but he was not that type of player five years ago. That's just a development thing.

Those teams were just not good. Best way to prove it: 2009-2010 Cavs were 61-21; 2010-2011 Cavs were 19-63. Now I'm not suggesting Lebron is actually wirth 42 wins, but clearly that team wasn't very good.

Ike, I really don't want to defend my general assertion by arguing the very specific nuances of Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic's 2006-2007 season statistics in relation to each players career statistics. However, to address your criticism I'll answer them in a broad form. Varejao isn't a finesse player (he's not knocking down 19 footers, he's doesn't have an arsenal of low post moves, he's not shooting fade-aways from the low block with a hand in his face), he plays an aggressive balls-to-the-wall game...and we all know the term "developed" in this usage doesn't refer to that style of play. As for Pavlovic, if Varejao's stats after the 06-07 season can't be used to support my argument then Pavlovic's stats after the 06-07 season (or without lebron) can't hurt against my arguments either...you can't have it both ways.

As for the fiasco that was the 2010-2011 Cavs season, there were a few other crucial personnel changes and injuries which plagued it from the start. I don't want to get back into lebron blame game, but he left the Cavs high and dry by waiting till the very end of the free agency period to jump ship.

Posted by osgonlz on 6/29/2013 1:17:00 PM (view original):I'm still scratching my head why the Cavs organization and it's owner gets a pass on all this. They managed to get LJ in the draft and had him for seven seasons. In that time they failed to take advantage of having an elite player and building a winner around him. I sort of understand from a fan perspective having some sort of resentment on Lebron. But the hatred should be towards that terrible franchise.

I can understand the point you're trying to get at, but I would have to disagree strongly about them not building a winning organization during that time period. The team was very successful in the playoffs and lead the league in wins one of those years. For the most part, those teams had very good role players and had good depth for an nba franchise.

C'mon, really?

It's funny that everyone hates the MJ comparisons, but Lebron made everyone on those teams look like legitimate NBA players when they were, in fact, useless.

Seriously, who on that team was a good role player when not playing with Lebron? Maybe Z. Maybe Gooden. Hughes wasn't good before ot after Lebron. Eric Snow about 10 years prior...maybe. That's about it, and Gooden is stretching it.

Have to agree with this. Aside from the actual players if you look at the stats - Lebron clearly had little support as has pretty much been the case with his time in Cleveland - He logged in 594 more minutes (equivalent of 13 more games played) than the next best player on this roster (Or at the time thought to be the next best player judging by minutes and stats) Larry Hughes who definitely wasn't that great and Lebron scored 1,087 more points than the next best player - Larry Hughes while still maintaining the second highest FG% on the team as well as leading the team in DRB and assists by far. Based on the stats Gooden was probably the most valuable role player that season along with Ilgauskas as Hughes was pretty inefficient hitting 40% from the field. Verajao, as everyone else has conceded, should be added as a decent role player but definitely not great in this particular season.

Gotta disagree with some of this. Again, if you have a superstar like Lebron you resign him with a year or two left on his contract. If he doesn't sign the extention then obviously he isn't committed to your organization and you have to consider what his trade value is which it's Lebron so it's astronomically high. I think Lebron truly wanted to bring a ring to Ohio, but that 2007 fiasco was an eye opener and the situation just degraded from there when the organization did nothing to help him win. Look at what happened with Kukoc and MJ and Scottie - they didn't want him on the team when they found out the Bulls were going to get him and so they thoroughly embarrased him purposely in the 92 Olympics but the organization had to know what's best for the team and do what was necessary... Lebron isn't in the front office- it's not his job to build a team.

I still don't think Lebron "ditched" the cavs- he played the full length of his contract and decided to move on. Carmelo ditched the Nuggets and Chris Paul ditched the Hornets and Dwight ditched the Magic. What we are really talking about here is a BAD organization. My apologies to the Cavs fans but it's true as Gilbert showed with his rantings and ravings following the decision. Yes the decision was arrogant- but this guy with the exception of a Kobe Bryant or maybe D.Howard is the only guy that had the star power to do this and although misguided I think he still tried to do some good with his star power.

Posted by rednation58 on 7/3/2013 1:55:00 PM (view original):Gotta disagree with some of this. Again, if you have a superstar like Lebron you resign him with a year or two left on his contract. If he doesn't sign the extention then obviously he isn't committed to your organization and you have to consider what his trade value is which it's Lebron so it's astronomically high. I think Lebron truly wanted to bring a ring to Ohio, but that 2007 fiasco was an eye opener and the situation just degraded from there when the organization did nothing to help him win. Look at what happened with Kukoc and MJ and Scottie - they didn't want him on the team when they found out the Bulls were going to get him and so they thoroughly embarrased him purposely in the 92 Olympics but the organization had to know what's best for the team and do what was necessary... Lebron isn't in the front office- it's not his job to build a team.

I still don't think Lebron "ditched" the cavs- he played the full length of his contract and decided to move on. Carmelo ditched the Nuggets and Chris Paul ditched the Hornets and Dwight ditched the Magic. What we are really talking about here is a BAD organization. My apologies to the Cavs fans but it's true as Gilbert showed with his rantings and ravings following the decision. Yes the decision was arrogant- but this guy with the exception of a Kobe Bryant or maybe D.Howard is the only guy that had the star power to do this and although misguided I think he still tried to do some good with his star power.

+1

I agree with this 100%. I think that the 'decision' made no difference one way or another. He was going to leave anyway and the fans were left to grab at something to blame and hate. I also believe that the Cavs failed to capitalize while having LJ. Failed to keep LJ. And are no different than any other small market team in terms of having challenges to keep elite players.

This is my point. While the Cavs technically "traded" LeBron to Miami, if it were done properly, it would have happened well before it did. Also, it it was a fair trade in terms of value, Miami would have had to trade Dwyane Wade, a few other guys, and their first round pick unprotected for about the next five years the Cavs to get LeBron.

How is this your point? One this is lose lose for Lebron... if he publicly says he wants out he's still hated and you'd be here hating him for that and I bet Gilbert still shows how professional he is. Two, again it is the organizations responsibility to not put themselves in this situation where they'd lose. I know Lebron was traded, but I'm still not sure how that happened considering he was a free agent so someone did Cleveland a huge favor, whether it was the NBA or the Miami Heat.

What "good" did he do with his star power? Raise money for a charity through a self-promotion? He could have just donated that much money if that was his goal. No, he wanted the self-promotion because he's an arrogant ****.

Yeah, so I pretty much don't like LeBron. I'm sure you've guessed as much. I'm not the only one. Go ask any Cavs fan and I think most will not be LeBron fans.

yes, he raised money and yes he could have donated money but he didn't. He made the decision. It did do some good no matter how much you hate the guy.

Posted by osgonlz on 6/29/2013 1:17:00 PM (view original):I'm still scratching my head why the Cavs organization and it's owner gets a pass on all this. They managed to get LJ in the draft and had him for seven seasons. In that time they failed to take advantage of having an elite player and building a winner around him. I sort of understand from a fan perspective having some sort of resentment on Lebron. But the hatred should be towards that terrible franchise.

I can understand the point you're trying to get at, but I would have to disagree strongly about them not building a winning organization during that time period. The team was very successful in the playoffs and lead the league in wins one of those years. For the most part, those teams had very good role players and had good depth for an nba franchise.

C'mon, really?

It's funny that everyone hates the MJ comparisons, but Lebron made everyone on those teams look like legitimate NBA players when they were, in fact, useless.

Seriously, who on that team was a good role player when not playing with Lebron? Maybe Z. Maybe Gooden. Hughes wasn't good before ot after Lebron. Eric Snow about 10 years prior...maybe. That's about it, and Gooden is stretching it.

Have to agree with this. Aside from the actual players if you look at the stats - Lebron clearly had little support as has pretty much been the case with his time in Cleveland - He logged in 594 more minutes (equivalent of 13 more games played) than the next best player on this roster (Or at the time thought to be the next best player judging by minutes and stats) Larry Hughes who definitely wasn't that great and Lebron scored 1,087 more points than the next best player - Larry Hughes while still maintaining the second highest FG% on the team as well as leading the team in DRB and assists by far. Based on the stats Gooden was probably the most valuable role player that season along with Ilgauskas as Hughes was pretty inefficient hitting 40% from the field. Verajao, as everyone else has conceded, should be added as a decent role player but definitely not great in this particular season.

Again, I don't know why, but the 06-07 team is getting talked about like it's the only roster the Cavs have ever put together. Although, I did forget to add that Daniel Gibson was on that team and he was a very good role player (and had some outstanding playoff performances) as well.

Ok first of all Mo Williams was an all star because of Lebron James... He's done nothing since. Even struggled to stay on other teams rosters(Clippers and now Utah). Really? Wally?? and Ben Wallace (old Ben at least come on man)??? I'll give you JJ Hickson but that's it. Shaq was finished by the time he came to Cleveland and Antwan Jamison?? no way. Delonte West was ok but again a head case. What has Boobie done since Lebron left as well? He had a few good games but how does that make you a very good role player? What has Sebastian Telfair ever done in the NBA other than be related to Marbury? I think he's ok but he's done nothing in the NBA worth speaking of. If any of the guys you named were solid role players at all they would have had success post Lebron and the only one on your list of names is JJ Hickson. Good role players can play on different rosters and still show they are good role players.

The 2007 roster is getting talked about because it's the team that made it to the championship. It's technically the most successful Cavs team ever.

Bistiza, how do you know LeBron knew he was leaving. You've asserted that repeatedly. Were you in communication with him? I think it is quite likely that when he planned the decision he thought it most likely he'd stay in Cleveland. It would certainly make the most sense in that context. Obviously there's no way for me to know that for sure either, but you continue to state it as fact that he "knew that he was leaving."